West to build manufacturing facility in Ireland
West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. hosted a ceremony, on Tuesday 16th June, to mark the start of construction for the company’s new pharmaceutical component manufacturing facility.
The Waterford facility will manufacture packaging components for insulin injector cartridges and other high-value packaging components for injectable drugs, to meet increasing customer demand. The company intends to employ approximately 150 people in engineering, production and other positions by the commencement of operations in late 2018.
Eric Green, chief executive officer at West, said: “We are very fortunate to have found an ideal location in Waterford, Ireland, with a highly skilled life sciences workforce and local government officials and agencies who are true partners.
“West’s presence in Ireland is of great importance to us for meeting customer demand for high-quality packaging components. Packaging systems play an important role in ensuring the purity, long-term stability and efficacy of injectable drug products. The advanced components that will be produced at our state-of-the-art Waterford plant will help our pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers deliver their products to patients.”
The new facility will function as a center of excellence for West’s proprietary elastomeric sheeting, which is used to package insulin for use in pen injectors. Additionally, the facility will include manufacturing capacity for additional proprietary injectable component product lines, which are integral to the packaging of many injectable medicines. Two key product lines include Westar RU components, which are delivered sterile and ready-to-use to customers for their aseptic filling operations, as well as NovaPure components, West’s highest quality packaging component line.
Cllr. James Tobin, mayor of Waterford City and County, said: “Today is an exciting day for Waterford and the local life sciences community. We are very pleased to have one of the world’s top manufacturers of pharmaceutical packaging and delivery systems establish roots in our city and provide new opportunities to our talented local workforce. We look forward to working closely with the West team for many years to come.”